


There Was A Time When You Let Me Know

by Keira_63



Series: The Minor Fall, The Major Lift [2]
Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Part of the Minor Fall Major Lift series, Scandal in Belgravia, Series 1, Series 2 episodes 1 & 2, Some Pre-Series, Some references to A Study in Pink, Story titles taken from the song Hallelujah, The Great Game, The Hounds of Baskerville
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-10 00:06:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keira_63/pseuds/Keira_63
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly tries not to resent John. She’s pleased that Sherlock has found such a close friend. But she also remembers when she was the one Sherlock went to, even when it was reluctantly. Now it seems John always catches him before she does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Was A Time When You Let Me Know

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second part in a series spanning from pre-series until post series 3. It was inspired by lyrics from the song Hallelujah - the series title and each story title is a line, or part of a line, from the song. This part includes pre-series, series 1 and series 2, episodes 1 & 2  
> No beta so sorry for any mistakes.

When Sherlock got back from rehab, she thought things would be better.  
It had been terribly lonely while he was away. Spending so much time with him meant she often found other people dull in comparison. She berated herself for that - she was a generally nice person - but couldn't help it. She enjoyed pathology, but she missed the rush and excitement Sherlock brought to her life.  
Unfortunately, while he had lost his drug habit, Sherlock also seemed to have almost completely forgotten her during his rehab stay. She knew he deleted information he deemed extraneous from his mind, but Molly had never expected that she would be one of those things.  
He knew who she was, and all the information he had deduced that first day they met was still there, but he seemed to have completely removed all the good memories, as well as those involving her helping him during his period of addiction.  
He acted like she was practically a stranger to him.  
She heard the words he had once spoken to her, after she‘d saved his life following his overdose. "I won't forget it," he told her, almost earnestly, "Molly Hooper, the woman who saved Sherlock Holmes."  
She’d known Sherlock Holmes lied. She’d always hoped that promise was something truthful, but she guessed she would be disappointed. When she returned home to her flat that night, she cried herself to sleep.

Then, the next day, and all the days after, she tried to act like there was nothing wrong. She smiled, helped Sherlock with his experiments, gave him body parts (Mycroft had impressive pull at St. Barts) and let him act as if she was nothing at all to him.  
Every now and then, she tried to find that friendship they’d once had, She asked him out for coffee, he acted as if it was just an offer from her to get him a cup. She tried to show interest in his experiments, and he just told her she was thinking too loudly. It was like trying to interact with an annoying brick wall.  
Still, he wasn’t cruel, only distant. She still thought they were friends, even if he didn’t.

The problem was that she loved him. Beyond reason, probably, considering his treatment of her, but it was the truth.  
She’d hidden it much better before, when the time they’d spent together experimenting and solving cold cases had been enough. Now, when he gave her nothing, she craved more.  
She acted like a schoolgirl with her first crush - it was embarrassing, but she couldn’t help it. Perhaps a part of her thought if she was so obvious, he’d have to see her feelings, couldn’t ignore them. But he did and she gave up, for the most part, though her feelings for him remained as strong as ever.  
Her mind told her she was a masochistic idiot.  
Nothing changed

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Watson was, to Molly, both an angel and a devil.  
He seemed to be the perfect match for Sherlock in creating a crime-solving duo. Even with his initial reluctance, he was an asset almost immediately. Sherlock took John’s praise far better than he ever did hers - with John, he fawned, while with Molly he acted as if it meant nothing and was just expected.  
Sherlock had not known John long at all and yet he almost raved about John to her. She hadn’t really seen him ever get so excited over something that wasn’t an interesting case, an important experiment, annoying Mycroft or (when he was using) drugs.  
She was incredibly jealous.

Then, so soon after their first meeting and decision to take a flat together (he never even considered her as a potential flatmate), John Watson saved Sherlock’s life.  
She wasn’t sure she’d ever forgive him for that.  
Not that she wanted Sherlock to die. She’d never want that. But for so long she’d been the only one there. Sure, there was Mycroft, but he was distant, and Inspector Lestrade was probably a friend to Sherlock, but not like Molly was … or had been.  
John was replacing her … no, worse, he was taking her place and making it a better one for himself. Sherlock seemed to care far more about him than Molly. She had saved Sherlock, but now so had John. She wasn’t the only one to continually help him. She wasn’t special any more.

It continued. He complimented her to get what he wanted and she let him. She saw more of John, though perhaps not as much as expected. Sherlock did turn up alone in the morgue or lab sometimes. She liked those times best, when she could almost pretend it was like old times.  
John didn't fade into the background the way she sometimes hoped he would (it was a horrid thought - she sometimes thought she was a terrible person). Sherlock didn't grow bored of him.  
She got used to no longer being Sherlock's only saviour.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim from IT seemed nice. He complimented her and enjoyed many of the same things she did, especially Glee (Sherlock scoffed at it all).  
It wouldn't work out in a forever kind of way, she knew, but it would be nice to have a boyfriend for a while, especially since Sherlock seemed to have dropped his habit of interrupting her dates (a part of her almost missed him doing it).  
And if Jim seemed overly curious about Sherlock, she didn't pay it much mind. To her, Sherlock was vastly interesting, and she didn't think it unusual that someone else might think so too (especially since Jim had never met, and therefore been insulted by, Sherlock).  
Then Sherlock had to open his mouth and ruin it all, as usual. She got over her embarrassment as best as she could, broke it off with Jim (who seemed completely unbothered) and went home to try and cheer herself up with a good film, some wine and chocolates. She decided to give dating a rest for a while.  
The only minor satisfaction she derived from the entire debacle was John's slight irritation when she momentarily forgot his name (she was a bit preoccupied between Sherlock and Jim).  
It was petty and unfair to John, who hadn't really done anything wrong, but it felt rather good to see him experience the feeling of lacking worth - it was what Sherlock made her feel all the time now he had John.  
Again, she was a times a rather terrible person.  
She really needed to hit Sherlock. It might make her feel better.  
She still couldn't find the courage to do it.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim turned out to be Moriarty, who turned out to be a psychopath that almost blew Sherlock and John up.  
She felt awful. She had once been the one to save Sherlock. Now she was the one whose ex-boyfriend had tried to kill him.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Molly didn't know anything about the incident at the pool, where Sherlock and John were so close to death, until there was a knock on her door. She opened it to find herself face to face with a woman who was a complete stranger and yet very familiar.  
It was the woman she'd seen on a regular basis. On the same platform in the Underground station, the next table over in a restaurant, or behind her in the supermarket checkout line.  
She'd never thought much of it, barely registering that she often saw the woman. Facing her, Molly was unsure and confused about whether or not she should be worried.  
The stranger handed her a mobile phone, which immediately started ringing.  
"Hello?"  
"Doctor Hooper," Mycroft Holmes' distinctive tone came from the speaker, "meet Anthea, my assistant. She'll be staying with you for the night, until some more permanent security can be arranged."  
"What on earth are you talking about?" asked Molly, "why do I need security - what's happened?"  
"Anthea will explain Dr Hooper. The threat to you is likely minimal at this juncture in time, but it is better, I think, to be safe."  
"With that, he hung up and Molly found no other option but to invite Anthea in and wait for an explanation.

Anthea, however, was silent for a while, fiddling away on her Blackberry. Molly couldn't bring herself to demand an explanation - his assistant was almost as terrifying to her as Mycroft (and he scared her entirely too much for a man she had only ever spoken on the phone with).  
Eventually, though, Anthea spoke to her.  
"James Moriarty is the one responsible for the incidents Sherlock has been dealing with recently. Earlier this evening he lured Sherlock there, where he held Mr Watson with numerous explosives attached. There was an altercation of sorts."  
She spoke with no alarm, no emotion at all. It was an impressive talent - to others it might have made her seem quite heartless, but to Molly she just appeared matter-of-fact (after all, she was probably used to such things, working for Mycroft).  
Molly couldn't speak. Her ex-boyfriend had tried to kill Sherlock and John. He was the criminal Sherlock had been hunting, a psychopath.  
"Are they ok?" she asked quickly and with no little panic, "they haven't been injured? Are they in hospital?"  
"Calm yourself Doctor Hooper, both men are quite safe and unharmed at Baker Street. Moriarty found temporary entertainment elsewhere and disappeared."

Molly had a hundred more questions to ask, especially regarding whether they knew Moriarty's current whereabouts, but Anthea seemed disinclined to converse further about the incident. She only dug into her bag, pulling out a box and a sheet of paper, both of which she handed to Molly.  
Inside the box was a taser, and the paper seemed to be some sort of special permit allowing her to carry it.  
"You might want to look into some self-defence classes too," Anthea told her, "just in case."  
She then stood and disappeared off into another room, presumably to do some sort of perimeter check (Molly wasn't really up to date on the sort of security protocols Mycroft's people used).  
Molly stayed up almost the whole night waiting for a phone call from Sherlock ... she never got one.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John showed up at the morgue when she was working the next day. Anthea had vanished by the time she had woken up, leaving a note that told her there would be security watching her for the foreseeable future. She wasn't overly happy at the idea of stalkerish security, but she understood the need for it.  
“John!” she cried upon seeing him, “are you ok? I heard what happened, I’m so sorry.”  
“You’ve got nothing to apologise for Molly.”  
“I introduced you,” she moaned miserably, “I dated a psychopath.”  
“You couldn’t have known,” John reassured her, “not even Sherlock knew until it was there in his face.”  
He paused, “how do you even know?” he asked, “it hasn’t made the news yet. Did Lestrade tell you?”  
She shook her head, “Mycroft phoned. His assistant came over.”

"Anthea, I met her once. She was quite ... peculiar."  
Molly found herself giggling, "a little, yes, but she does work for Mycroft."  
Molly was uncommonly pleased to see John. The fact that he'd nearly died had erased most of the resentment she felt towards him, "I'm glad you're ok."  
"Believe me, so am I. I thought for sure none of us were getting out of there alive."  
"How's Sherlock?" she asked, trying to sound casual and wincing when she saw the expression on his face, full of concern and sympathy - John could obviously tell she had feelings for his flatmate.  
"He's fine. Didn't feel like going out, wanted to look over all the information on Moriarty."  
"You don't have to lie to make me feel better, John," she sighed, "I know what Sherlock is like."  
He didn't seem to care at all. She supposed that her previous relationship with Moriarty made him see her as an even bigger idiot than he already thought she was.  
But even Mycroft had checked up on her.  
She sighed again. She really needed to get over Sherlock Holmes.

John had obviously noticed her distress, "come on, it's almost one. I'll buy you lunch and fill you in on what happened."  
She smiled at him. Perhaps John Watson was not the problem she'd thought he was.  
And she really needed a friend.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The less said about the debacle with 'the woman' and that disaster of a Christmas party, the better.  
She finally met Mycroft, though. It was ... interesting.

……

Sherlock had behaved abominably at the party and, unusually, she had actually called him out on his rudeness. She wasn't quite sure what had come over her, but considering what Sherlock had said to her (and how he'd humiliated her), she thought he deserved her anger.  
He had given her an apology, though, which he hadn't done since before rehab. He'd even kissed her cheek and sent her heart fluttering (traitorous thing). She thought he might finally have started to appreciate her, to revert back to their previous friendship.  
Then everything had been ruined by Irene Adler's moan on Sherlock's phone (further humiliation) and, later, by Sherlock identifying Irene's body by 'not her face'.  
Mycroft was as she had often imagined him. Not as thin as his brother was, but not nearly as fat as Sherlock's words had suggested he was. Imposing without even trying and just as superior as Sherlock could be.

As they waited for Sherlock to arrive, Molly fidgeted and Mycroft simply twirled his umbrella.  
"Why are you here, Doctor Hooper?" he asked.  
"It's Christmas, everyone else is busy."  
"But not you."  
"My family are gone, as I'm sure you know Mr Holmes. I don't really have many close friends. I didn't mind coming in, I don't celebrate Christmas much any more."  
Mycroft just looked at her, his expression telling her that he knew there was more.  
“Sherlock’s the closest thing to a best friend I’ve ever had. Even if he seems to have deleted almost everything from before rehab, I can’t forget it. I don’t think Sherlock Holmes will ever be out of my system.”

He looked at her with pity, a similar expression to the one John had given her. If people didn’t stop looking at her like that, she would really start to think she was pathetic.  
“Caring is not an advantage, Doctor Hooper.”  
He didn’t say anything else until Sherlock arrived.

Most people would have taken Mycroft’s words as a mere warning to stay emotionally detached from Sherlock. Molly didn’t see it that way.  
Mycroft didn’t hate her, and he had showed some concern for her wellbeing (though it was probably just a by-product of her saving Sherlock’s life, years previously).  
She thought his words were a futile warning. He told her that emotions hurt, and that was true, especially when it came to her emotions for Sherlock. His words also suggested it was his own belief, and probably Sherlock’s too. Another warning, telling her that Sherlock was hopeless with emotions (as if she didn’t already know that).  
Mycroft was, in his own roundabout way, trying to tell her to move on. Not because he disliked her, but because he thought it would just hurt her.  
He was probably right.  
Unfortunately, Sherlock Holmes was not the kind of man it was easy to get over.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Sherlock and John went to Dartmoor for a case, Molly found herself quite bereft. Sherlock may not have visited the morgue or lab every day, but he was forever texting her with pathology-related questions or requests for lab space and body parts - she missed it, even though the texts were rarely polite and showed little interest in her aside from her close proximity to what he wanted.  
Years ago, before rehab, if Sherlock had received such a case (and hadn’t been high enough to blow it off) he would have taken her with him. He liked an assistant, an audience, liked someone to talk to (or rather, at) and even valued the rare insight that partner might give that he didn’t immediately dismiss.  
He never did that now. She did him favours within the confines of the hospital, but she hadn’t been on a case with him for years, since before he was released, clean and sober, from rehab.  
She missed the cases. It wasn’t as much fun in the morgue, where she rarely got to see Sherlock’s thought processes at work.  
She envied John, and Lestrade too, sent to assist (or baby-sit) by Mycroft. Except she was trying to get over that, now John and Lestrade were both friends. She really needed a hobby.

She went to visit Mrs Hudson instead.  
She’d heard quite a lot about Sherlock and John’s landlady. Sherlock had mentioned the case to her in passing years previously - how he had ensured Mrs Hudson’s abusive husband was found guilty of the murder he had most definitely committed. It was through John, however, that she had learned more, and she was very impressed.  
Mrs Hudson was a strong woman, she managed to speak regularly with Sherlock without usually being insulted (and Sherlock definitely defended her) and she managed to cope with being the landlady to a man who regularly liked to shoot his walls and kept all manner of body parts in his fridge. She didn’t even seem to hold a grudge against Molly for being the one to provide Sherlock with said body parts.  
Mrs Hudson was, quite frankly, brilliant, and Molly wanted to get to know her better, since they had only met once at the disaster that had been the Christmas party, and they hadn’t had much chance to talk then.

Mrs Hudson was very welcoming and friendly, pleased to see Molly and happy to have someone to chat with about both Sherlock, John and their bio-hazard of a flat, as well as the more feminine topics her boarders avoided.  
Mrs Hudson waved away Molly’s apologises about the body parts.  
“He wants them, dear, and I know him well enough to realise that he’d find a way even if you didn’t help him. At least this way I know he’s not getting into too much trouble trying to acquire parts. Better a hospital than a black market on the street, that’s what I say dear.”  
Molly smiled and nodded, guessing that might also be one of the reasons Mycroft ensured access to Barts Morgue for his younger brother.  
She and Mrs Hudson enjoyed their meeting so much they decided to meet weekly at 221B for tea and a chat.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the end, she did get a hobby. She finally started attending the self-defence classes Anthea had suggested in the wake of the discovery regarding Jim/Moriarty. She'd been meaning to start for ages, but had never got round to it.  
She started going once a week, but soon joined the class on another day too. It made her feel stronger.  
She also liked the idea that, if she ever actually went through with her regular desire to punch Sherlock, she'd be able to do it properly, without hurting herself.  
John and Greg Lestrade laughed hysterically when she told them. Apparently, wanting to smack Sherlock was a common thought for most of those who spent significant time around the consulting detective.  
Sherlock had been most disconcerted when he'd walked in and the three of them had just started laughing. He'd sulked for days until Molly bought him a fresh new liver to experiment on and Greg gave him a case he rated an eight.  
Of course, he'd gone into another sulk two days later when he'd spoken to Molly about security.  
"Lestrade says you won't take a protection detail. He's very indignant about it."  
He'd spoken in a bored tone that suggested he didn't care at all, but the fact that he'd even mentioned it gave her some hope. Still, when she explained Mycroft's interference he'd started muttering about high-handed brothers and left soon after, ranting down his phone at Mycroft.

It was better. She wasn't as lonely as she had been before.  
Sherlock was still too distant for her liking, but at least she had John and Greg and Mrs Hudson. She'd even managed to make a work friend - a lovely woman called Mary, who was a nurse at Barts. They occasionally went out for drinks and it was nice to know someone not completely caught up in the Sherlock vortex.  
She'd once been the one Sherlock confided in (as much as he confided in anybody). She'd picked him up and saved him from a drug overdose. Now, she was just a convenient way to get body parts and his own personal pathologist on-call (again, convenience).  
But she had friends. Sherlock hadn't been quite as cold to her since his apology at the Christmas party (and that apology had seemed genuine to her). Things were looking up, and she even had a nice lunch date lined up soon.  
So, of course, that's when everything went to hell. That's when Moriarty returned.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully the next part, which focuses on the Reichenbach Fall, won't be too long coming.  
> See the notes on the series page for the titles of the upcoming stories in this series.  
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
